A Hot Drink Can Actually Make You Friendlier

Hot drinks are good for more than warming you up on a cold winter's day — studies show they can actually make you friendlier.

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Sure, a hot cup of tea can warm you up from the inside out on a chilly day, but that's not all it can do. According to The Guardian, a study published in the journal Science showed that participants who held a cup of hot coffee were more likely to "[judge] a target person as having 'warmer' personality (generous, caring)," than those who held iced coffees. (In this study, the subjects were unaware that the coffee had anything to do with the study at hand.)

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Why, exactly? Researchers hypothesize that this could be the case because the part of the brain where we humans process warmth is also the area where judgments about others are formed. Further, researchers theorize, our association of warmth of character and warmth of temperature may very well be rooted in our childhood recognition of parental warmth and nourishment. Whoa.

Looking for more of a reason to indulge in some hot toddies this winter? Another researcher by the name of Ron Eccles, director of The Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University, also concluded that hot drinks help heal those suffering from the common cold, in both the long term and the short term. However, this isn't scientific, Eccles explains, so much as it is emotional, as was proven when patients reported that their symptoms had eased even when their nasal passages appeared no less clogged. "Remember," he says, "symptoms are what we feel, and what we feel can be influenced by our mood, our expectations, our culture, all sorts of things."

And it's not just the temperature of your beverage that affects your mood and feelings of well-being — your choice of drinking vessel could have an impact, too. Many of us become attached to our favorite mugs, and there is some research to support the idea that this is because of the weight of the cup. Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, assistant professor at the Marketing and Consumer Behaviour department at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, performed a study that found that people felt fuller when eating out of a heavier bowl versus a lighter one, and it's possible that the same feelings of satisfaction could apply to what we drink, as well as what we eat.